NDA (II) 2022 GAT Q18: The flood situation during the monsoon this year was

Q: What is the answer to NDA (II) 2022 GAT Q18?

B. Correct — B, catastrophic. 'Calamitous' describes something that brings a calamity, that is, great destruction and suffering, and 'catastrophic' carries exactly that sense of sudden large-scale ruin, which is what a flood that wrecks homes and crops does.

NDA (II) 2022 General Ability Test · Question 18 of 150

Question text verified against the official NDA question paper.

The flood situation during the monsoon this year was calamitous.

(a)abundance
(b)catastrophic
(c)encouraging
(d)welcome

Answer

Why

Correct — B, catastrophic. 'Calamitous' describes something that brings a calamity, that is, great destruction and suffering, and 'catastrophic' carries exactly that sense of sudden large-scale ruin, which is what a flood that wrecks homes and crops does.

Why the others are wrong

(a)abundance — 'Abundance' is a noun meaning a plentiful supply. It speaks of quantity, not of damage, and it cannot fill an adjective slot.
(c)encouraging — 'Encouraging' gives hope. That is the opposite of the ruin a calamitous flood leaves behind.
(d)welcome — Calling the flood 'welcome' would mean people were glad of it, which reverses the meaning of the sentence.

Concept

A synonym item on 'calamitous', the adjective built on the noun 'calamity', meaning disastrous or ruinous.

Two of the choices, 'encouraging' and 'welcome', pull in a positive direction and can be struck out on tone alone. 'Abundance' fails the part-of-speech test, since the slot needs an adjective and not a noun. That leaves 'catastrophic', which matches in both meaning and grammatical form.

Key facts

A calamity is a disaster causing great damage, and 'calamitous' is its adjective form.
'Catastrophic' comes from 'catastrophe' and carries the same sense of sudden, large-scale ruin.

Study next

Adjectives formed from disaster nouns — calamitous, catastrophic, disastrous, ruinousUsing part of speech to eliminate options in a synonym questionReading positive or negative connotation as a first filter in vocabulary items

Common traps

Picking a noun such as 'abundance' when the sentence slot needs an adjective.
Reading 'calamitous' as merely 'large' and choosing a word about quantity.

Asked as a vocabulary item — choose the word closest in meaning to the tested word in the sentence.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Which word is nearest in meaning to 'ruinous' in the sentence 'The war had a ruinous effect on the economy.'?
- (a)profitable
- (b)devastating
- (c)temporary
- (d)modest
Answer(b) devastating — 'ruinous' means causing ruin or severe damage.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which word is nearest in meaning to 'catastrophe' in the sentence 'The bursting of the dam was a catastrophe for the valley.'?
- (a)celebration
- (b)rehearsal
- (c)disaster
- (d)delay
Answer(c) disaster — a catastrophe is a sudden event causing great damage.